Comments for Factory Sunbursthttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com
A guitar player trying to think about music (and performance) in general.Thu, 26 Oct 2017 01:10:56 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by SHERMAN | When I Worked for the Greatest Website in the World | The Cornell Daily Sunhttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-595
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 01:10:56 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-595[…] albums, from those of Kemialliset Ystavat to Kanye West, Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood to (famously) the Beatles. 15 year-old Troy — with what felt like a string coming down from the sky […]
]]>Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by factorysunbursthttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-589
Fri, 19 May 2017 23:25:59 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-589Because I have better things to do with my life than repeat myself.

I’d like to answer the comment by “Jean Lemonade” about George Harrison not being “a great guitarrist” and Ringo being an “average drummer” (he also said something about Paul’s songs being boring, and I strongly disagree on that, since I think Paul’s songs are usually melodic, catchy and entertaining, but I know that this is a totally SUBJECTIVE matter so it would be silly to debate about it).

About George and Ringo; this is not the first time that I read someone “critizising” the Beatles for not being “virtuosos” with their instruments. I’ve seen other people pointing out that The Who had a better drummer (Moon), Led Zeppelin had a better guitarrist (Page), etc. In this case Jean Lemonade didn’t mention other musicians or bands, so I don’t know if he was really thinking about The Who and Zeppelin (as many other do when they compare the musical chops of The Beatles), but the funny thing is that if we are really talking about musical chops in the technical sense (instrumental virtuosism) we should forget these bands and talk about Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer… or even better, we should forget about ALL the great classic rock bands from the 60’s and the 70’s and talk about Dream Theater, since they are even more talented with their instruments than any of the old prog rock bands (maybe including King Crimson).

The thing is that, in my humble opinion, virtuosism is not a GOAL, but a TOOL to reach the goal. I evaluate rock bands according to their originality, their diversity, their talent to create emotions in me, etc. But their musical chops is simply something they CAN use if they need to use it. Maybe an example (even if comparing art with sports is not very appropiate) could be a guy saying that a basketball player is good only because he is tall. Being tall definitely is an advantage for a basketball player (as being skilled with an instrument is an advantage to create music), but a tall guy can still be a bad basketball player (as there are skilled instrumentists who aren’t creative composers and CAN’T write original, diverse, resonant, pleasant or intelligent music, IN SPITE of being virtuosos) and a shorter guy can be a good player, even if the lack of height can be considered a “disadvantage” in comparison to others, but his height can be ENOUGH to do what he wants to do and succeed.

The Beatles had enough instrumental skill to do what they wanted to do, that is, to play the great music they created. They didn’t need to be virtuosos to play their excellent songs, so why should I care about them not being virtuosos? Why should I care about a basketball player not being 7 ft tall if being only 5’11” he SCORES EVERY TIME and he always wins?

The Beatles wrote melodies that were great, not only because they were “catchy” or “easy to listen” (as Scaruffi could say), but because they were also ORIGINAL and creative compositions, with original chord progressions; and they also added these innovations (strings, sitars, psychedelia, sound collages, flutes, etc); but the important thing about the innovations wasn’t BEING THE FIRST to use a weird instrument or being the first in making a weird experiment. What really matters is that they put this innovations in the context of a great song, with a memorable and unforgetable melody. I don’t really care if “Eleanor Rigby” wasn’t the first pop song to use a string quartet (maybe a totally unknown band did it first, why not?), because the important thing is that Eleanor Rigby has such a great melody that it will be remembered forever (and of course, you can disagree about the song being “great”, but you can’t deny that it’s still remembered, and there’s a reason why).

Of course, I won’t deny that there are some innovations that belong to other bands. Definitely THE KINKS were a GREAT BAND (I should use even bigger letters to say that), and I love them, they were MAYBE the first to create an “eastern” influenced song with “See my friend” (a great song), even if they didn’t use an actual sitar, like The Beatles did in “Norwegian Wood” and “Love you To”. Saying that The Beatles were the best band doesn’t mean that MANY other bands (The Kinks, The Who, The Doors, etc) weren’t great too, and doesn’t mean they don’t deserve some credit for their own original and creative ideas.

That’s all for the moment. By the way, sorry for my bad english (I’m from Spain).

]]>Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by factorysunbursthttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-556
Mon, 01 May 2017 21:44:14 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-556Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.
]]>Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by Jean Lemonadehttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-555
Mon, 01 May 2017 21:35:52 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-555Well, without those innovative studio recording techniques revolutionary songs like Rain or Tomorrow Never Knows would have never sounded as groundbreaking or good as they did (that compressed guitar sound and heavy bass on Rain, combined with Ringo’s excellent drumming, is what makes the song so damn good). The songs would probably still have sounded really good, but not as “revolutionary” (imagine Strawberry Fields Forever without Martin adding all the clever bits).
And Ringo was a pretty competent drummer (especially on She Said She Said and Rain)… But he wasn’t “great” or anything. He was solid, that’s all.

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I didn’t mean to say that McCartney has only written bad songs or anything, I just think that some of his songs are boring. He did write some good tunes though like I’m Looking Through You, Got To Get You Into My Life, Oh Darling!, etc.

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I think it’s pretty easy to hear influences from contemporary musicians and bands of their times all over their music. Much of Please Please Me and With The Beatles are scrambled songs by Arthur Alexander, Roy Orbison, Smokey Robinson and Motown groups.

You Can’t Do That is similar to Marvin Gaye’s Hitch Hike. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away is Dylanesque. Drive My Car nicked the bass line and groove from Otis Redding’s Respect. Stones release Satisfaction and some months later Beatles release a riff-based song trying to sound as tough as the Stones (Day Tripper). Kinks did the Indian thing before the Beatles with See My Friends (and imo Ray Davies did it ten times better than the Beatles with both See My Friends and Fancy, and it sounded more “European” in a way), and some months later the Beatles release a song with George playing sitar. Kinks do the music hall and later McCartney decides to do a lot of music hall on Sgt. Pepper. Much of the “psychedelic” sounds on Sgt. Pepper were taken from the Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday. Ob-la-di Ob-La-Da is similar to the Royal Gurdsmen’s My Airplane. Much of the White Album and Abbey Road are influenced by Cream, Iron Butterfly and other jam rock bands of their era. And so on and so forth.

So you can definitely hear contemporary influences in their sound and in their songs.

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I certainly don’t agree with everything Scaruffi has to say, but the reason as to why I think you’re a little unfair to him is because he actually lists some of the Beatles songs as the best of the Sixties (Penny Lane, A Day In The Life, etc). He also rates Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper 7/10. I don’t think he really hates the Beatles, he just thinks they’re overrated and therefore writes in a provocative way so he can create a more sober discussion about their songs and albums.

Just my opinion.

]]>Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by factorysunbursthttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-553
Mon, 01 May 2017 09:01:16 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-553I don’t think you’re quite fair on the Beatles here. The ‘inventions’ you attribute to Martin and Emerick were their technical solutions to problems the band set them. Ringo was a far from average drummer, having superb control of tempo and timbre. He wasn’t a technically flashy drummer like Keith Moon, but I don’t know a single Beatle song which vould have been improved by replacing Ringo.

I don’t agree about McCartney. I think he’s better than you give him credit for being. He did write most of my least favourite of their songs, but also some of their best. And Lennon’s best songs were good songs before they did weird stuff to them in the studio.

I agree that the Beatles were directly influenced by other musicians but disagree about who those musicians were. For the most part, they weren’t other rock bands or pop groups (much). The Beatles were a conduit through which the influence of classical music, jazz and the avant-garde flowed into pop music (McCartney going to an AMM gig, etc.)

Yeah, they’re overhyped. They had a narrower range than people think. But overall I think they had better quality control than their peers, at least up until late 1967 or so.

IMO it is impossible to be unfair to Scaruffi. He deserves every kind of kicking for his sloppiness.

]]>Comment on Piero Scaruffi and truth by Jean Lemonadehttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-552
Mon, 01 May 2017 06:23:28 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-552I love the Beatles myself and they really made me appreciate music, but let’s face it, many of their songs and albums are pretty overrated once you’ve also discovered other good bands. George was wasn’t a great guitarist, many of Paul’s compositions were boring, John wouldn’t have created his masterpieces if it weren’t for the help he received in production, and Ringo was — at best — an average drummer.

And most of the so-called inventions attributed to the band members were usually the results of Geoff Emerick’s and George Martin’s experimentations (for instance, the revolutionary guitar and bass sound on Rain/Paperback writer and some of the stuff on Tomorrow Never Knows were Geoff’s and Martin’s “inventions”).

When other bands experimented and invented things before the Beatles — their stuff was still attributed to the influence of the Beatles. And at the same time the music press attributes everything that ever happened in the music industry to the Beatles and act like the Beatles never had any influences from contemporary musicians themselves.

And many of the most heralded albums contain boring filler songs (usually written by Mccartney).

You’re a little unfair to Scaruffi, too, because he actually lists many Beatles’ songs in the “best songs lists” between 1964-1969.

But other than that, I really do love the Beatles. But to me they are more of a “songs band” than an “albums band” and I like some of their lesser-known songs more than the hyped up boring ones.

You say that you’re “educated” in music and yet you listen to Abba, Kiss, Madonna, Roxette, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Seal and Coldplay… What the heck have you been tokin’?

]]>Comment on Noel Gallagher and influences by Jean Lemonadehttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/noel-gallagher-and-influences/comment-page-1/#comment-550
Mon, 01 May 2017 05:32:57 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=187#comment-550Ian Brown (who himself wouldn’t be anything if it weren’t for his massively talented bandmates) made this accurate statement on Oasis in 1998:

“Nah, I think they’re boring, they’re like Status Quo. You know exactly what you’re going to get. I think Oasis have set music back 20 years. Oasis are just babies taking coke and pretending to be the Beatles. They’re wasting all of our time.” – Ian Brown

]]>Comment on Noel Gallagher and influences by Jean Lemonadehttps://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/noel-gallagher-and-influences/comment-page-1/#comment-549
Mon, 01 May 2017 05:19:22 +0000http://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/?p=187#comment-549Great post! I actually think that around 5-8 Oasis songs are enjoyable to listen to now and then, but the main bulk is like shitty glam rock from the 70’s/80’s or early 2000’s “teenage rock” à la Wheatus or Blink-182 (even that stuff is probably better). Just have a listen to some singles or tracks (like Supersonic, Hello, Hey Now, Digsy’s Dinner, Morning Glory, Up In The Sky, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, etc) on their 2 most heralded albums, Definitely Maybe and What’s The Story Morning Glory, and tell me that passes as “Beatlesque” or “historically great music”. And those horrible productions that made them sound like a “soft” commercial version of the Sex Pistols (mixed in with some U2) for pre-pubescent boys, just made it ten times worse.

Noel mentions his influences all the time but he never actually incorporates anything in his songs from them — except for some blatant and really poor, straight out, plagiarism (sure, Beatles and other bands copied and stole stuff all the time, but usually not as non-creative or blatant as Noel). I hear no Stones, no Smiths, no Stone Roses (comparing John Squire and his band to Noel is ridiculous beyond comprehension), no Townshend/Who, and DEFINITELY NO Kinks/Ray Davies or Beatles in the songwriting or melodic compartment. Oasis shouldn’t even be in the same league as bands like Mott The Hoople!

Noel and the rest of Oasis owe a huge debt to the junk media for giving them the gigantic and over-hyped attention as “the next Beatles” and giving them press headlines for picking their own coke-filled noses. This band wouldn’t even make a good tribute band to the Beatles, yet they themselves talked about how the Beatles influenced them in everything in every interview, and the media branded them as the best thing since sliced bread. Pathetic!

While the press kissed the Gallagher brothers butts, other bands during the “Britpop era” like Teenage Fanclub, Super Furry Animals, The Boo Radleys, etc, — pretty talented bands with good melodies and texts — were not given even 5% of the attention that Oasis received.

Despite this, I do enjoy the wits and humour of Noel in most interviews (even though he mostly does it for attention and some press), until it, as it often does, borders on severe grandiose narcissism and lies.